I’ve inherited close to a ton, from my father. Like him, I’m an unnecessary level of logical. Inherently pessimistic and resourceful (which makes me one of the best people to stay close to during a zombie invasion, if you’re taking notes). I have a dimpled chin and narrow set eyes like he does, and I’m almost as awkwardly sarcastic in uncomfortable situations.

I’ve also inherited a few things from my mother. Not much, but a tad. I like to think I’m as resilient as her (my friends have informed me that I’m actually not). I might even say I have a fraction of her sense of humor and her aversion to housework. Apart from that, the most precious things I’ve inherited from her is a camel-colored wool winter coat, a very rare bracelet made of uncut diamonds and all the recipes in her repertoire.

I have to, at this point, put it out there, that my mum is no accomplished cook. She won’t be offended at this, because more often than not, when she’s asked to cook, we end up with either under-salted or over-salted food. But like many uninterested cooks out there, she has a handful of recipes that she’s brilliant with.

Chicken sandwiches, for one. You could live off my mum’s chicken sandwiches. She always makes them with marbled bread. The chicken is shredded and pummeled with salt, cracked black pepper and even more butter till it resembles handmade paper. And there’s always a smidgen of mayonnaise. On occasions I’ve supplied her with homemade mayonnaise, but she swears that the sandwiches work better with store-bought. Don’t ask.

The second recipe is a Bengali mutton curry that was handed down to her by her mother. As a working mother, right from the sixties through to the nineties, my grandmother barely had time to stand over the stove to produce a feast. Instead she had quick-n-easy dishes up her sleeve that she handed down to her daughter. I think she secretly knew how useful they’d be to her granddaughter someday. I was in my second year of college when she died. I hadn’t yet found my love for cooking. Five more years would pass before, in the middle of a bone-chilling winter, I’d try my hand at producing her mutton curry — with lamb instead of mutton — and end up in a food coma after emptying the entire pot.

The third recipe is a prawn in coconut curry. The fourth is a chicken rice. And today is about the chicken rice.

If you’re immediately thinking of some version of a Singapore chicken rice, don’t. Far from it. This chicken rice is a loose version of biryani, an easier and quicker fix if you’re craving meat in spices buffed into a cloud cover of white rice.

You start with onions in ghee, and move on to adding ground spices and aromatics when the onions go glassy. The chicken pieces are then coated and par-cooked in the masala mix. Par boiled rice is added with milk and the pot is covered and cooked. The cook continues till the rice is fluffy and fragrant, and the till the lower layer sticks slightly to the bottom. Trust me, you have to be there for the stuck-to-bottom rice bits.

I’m not in a hurry to give up on restaurant biryani yet. Mum’s version was borne out of the time when we were all craving biryani, but didn’t want to eat out. Isn’t that how great homemade recipes come into existence? So she decided to put a quick version together. And what a version indeed. It’s one of those meals that always gets asked about when I post photos of it on social media. A few of my friends have hounded me for it. Anu, a friend from college, took it on herself to got in touch with my mother and get the recipe directly from her. It has my mother written all over it. It’s her signature. The recipe below hasn’t existed for generations in our family. Its not an heirloom. But I plan to make it one.

Sikha Chowdhury’s Chicken Rice

I will understand if you’d want to run for a jar of Patak’s Original after glancing at the long list of ingredients below. Indian recipes have that reputation. But don’t. Trust me on this and you can thank me later. The recipe feeds a family of four. Or two very hungry people.

Ingredients

For the Marinade

Chicken cut into curry pieces, 1 kilo

1/2 cup of yogurt (homemade is best, but store-bought will do)

2 teaspoons of salt

For the Chicken

The marinated chicken

2 tablespoons of ghee

2 black cardamom pods, split through the middle to expose the seeds

1 bay leaf

1 2-inch stick of cinnamon

4-5 pieces of black cloves

2 large red onions, sliced thinly into 1-inch slices

2 medium-sized tomatoes, quartered and all seeds removed

1 tablespoon of garlic paste

1 tablespoon of ginger paste

1 tablespoon of ground cumin

1 tablespoon of coriander powder

1 tablespoon of red chili powder

2 teaspoons of ground turmeric

White granulated sugar and salt, to taste

For the Rice

1 1/2 cups of Basmati rice (of not, then any long grain will do)

3 cups of water

To Finish

1 cup of milk, full-fat

1/2 cup of raisins or golden sultanas

1 tablespoon of ghee

Salt, to taste

Chopped coriander, to garnish

How-to

In a large bowl, coat the pieces of chicken with yogurt and 2 tbsp of salt. Wrap the bowl with cling film and rest in the refrigerator for two hours or more. If you’re in a hurry, rest for 20 minutes.

Wash the rice well in running water till the water is clear, instead of milky.

Bring the rice and 3 cups of water to a boil. The moment the water starts boiling, reduce the heat, cover the pot and cook for 7-8 minutes.

The rice needs to be par-cooked. Not completely soft, still a tiny bit raw in the middle of the grain. Drain the water and spread the par-cooked rice on a shallow tray to let it cool for a while.

Heat 2 tbsps of ghee in deep-bottomed pan.

Add the black cardamom, bay leaf, cinnamon and cloves, when the ghee is hot enough. Stir for 30 seconds.

Add the onions. Cook the onions till they go translucent and glassy, and start to turn slightly brown at the edges.

Add a teaspoon of white granulated sugar and stir till the onions start to brown up slightly more.

Add the tomatoes and cook till they soften a bit.

Add garlic, ginger, cumin, coriander, red chili powder and turmeric. Stir till the onions are all coated with the spices. If the mixture starts to go a bit dry and difficult to stir, add a tablespoon of water, and cook till the liquid evaporates. Add a tablespoon more of water and repeat. A total of 4 tbsps of water can be added gradually and stirred till dry. At the end of which the mixture will start to resemble a coarse masala paste.

Add the chicken along with its marinade. Stir to coat the chicken with the masala paste.

Reduce the heat to medium. Cover and cook for 8-10 minutes till the chicken starts to release some of the liquid. It should look like a chicken curry by now. If not, add a little more water and cook for 3-5 more minutes. Taste and season with salt.

Layer the par-cooked on top of the curry. Sprinkle the milk and raisins on top and give everything a good stir. All the rice doesn’t have to be coated fully with the masala. White patches of rice are OK.

Reduce the heat to low. Cover the pot tightly and cook on low heat for 15 minutes, or till the chicken is cooked through. It would be wise to check the mixture once in the middle of the cook. If it seems a little too dry, the rice will burn at the bottom, so don’t hesitate to add a little more water.

Remove from heat and sprinkle with freshly chopped coriander. Serve with a cucumber raita or a few slices of pickled cucumber.

Oh, don’t fret! I’m still working on the vacation posts. Yes, postS, in plural. It would be impossible — and criminal — to cover three fabulous cities in one post. Meanwhile, here’s what I’ve been obsessed with lately.

We went for Dunkirk a couple of days back and I caught myself staring lustily at the generic, and depressed-about-their-own-existence hot dogs that were being sold at the concession. That reminded me of our hot dog Christmas Feast last year, the recipes of which I haven’t shared yet. I’m not an avid collector of hot dog recipes to be honest, but I couldn’t stop craving them. So I jumped on the internet to look for a few new recipes and found this! Hot dogs! Moroccan carrot slaw! Jerusalem bagel buns! From the lovely Molly Yeh.

Oh and, before I forget, do yourself a favour and go watch Dunkirk. Just go. Harry Styles might just be the next Justin Timberlake, but that’s not why you should watch it.

Let’s face it, the Indian Censor Board is crap. Or rather, headed by crap-wits. All the scenes cut from the movie, Lipstick Under my Burkha, and the reasons they’d quoted to ban it, was recently released, and it’s only a glimpse of how crap-witted, and degenerative the censor board members are.

We fell in love with Bali (no idea why I never thought of going there earlier). So naturally, Priya and I are doing a Bali retreat in November! The retreat will be an immersive experience for couples and solo travelers that’ll include exploring the spiritual centers of the island, cultural performances, local handicrafts, cottage industries, plenty of beach time, water sports and of course, local food! No age bar, you can fly in from anywhere in the world, and we’ll take care of the rest. Check out the event pagefor more details and registration. You can also holler at me on amrita@altertrips.com and I’ll be more than happy to fill you in with details.

A great piece about being a solo female traveler in a group tour. How many times have we had to answer questions about why we choose, sometimes or at all times, to travel alone?

I was plugged into Youtube all day and ignored my work. Best Day of My Life by American Authors can help you to do that also.

Happy weekend, you lot!

]]>https://thesubjectivist.net/2017/07/28/lately-3/feed/0AmritaIMG_20170723_094209_102What we eathttps://thesubjectivist.net/2017/07/25/what-we-eat/
https://thesubjectivist.net/2017/07/25/what-we-eat/#respondTue, 25 Jul 2017 12:12:23 +0000http://thesubjectivist.net/?p=6111]]>You know what the rains are like here. We get swept away and washed off of all our sins every season. Then we roll right out of bed, grab black umbrellas left behind by our grandfathers, go back to work and dream of khichdi.

Khichdi with fried aubergines and cubes of potatoes coated in a poppy-seed crumb, crispy fried of course, and a large dollop of ghee on top for good measure. Khichdi, like this, or with flaked fish British-style, is something I will cook forever. I have done my research online trying to find poetry or pretty prose that might have been written on khichdi, but I have been unsuccessful so far. With fried hilsa fish, with popadoms and mango chutney or with an omelette on top. It is not a head-turner in any sense. It is not something you’d find in QP LDN’s menu for sure. But let’s be real here. As much as I enjoyed QP LDN’s food last summer, I did walk out of there still feeling a little hungry (and lighter in the pockets) and ended up gorging on a quarter-pounder form Burger King. That should tell you a lot about how we eat. And more importantly, what we eat.

A man I had dated for a very short while, had studied my Instagram feed very carefully. He said, “You really love food, don’t you..”

I do. But he wasn’t really asking a question, it was more of a self-assured whisper under his own breath, as if he was looking for clues to help him decide what to give me as a birthday gift. He then proceeded to observe, “You eat fancy!”

He didn’t last till my birthday, but I still think of that conversation.

The truth is that we don’t eat fancy at all. We eat out. We visit our favorite Indo-Chinese establishments or stroll to the neighborhood burger place that has, in recent times, turned magnificent. We get biryanis home-delivered. But those meals, although scrumptious enough to swear by, are hardly ever the kind of fancy you would want the world to be envious about. Good food. Great food, even. But not fancy food.

Most of our meals are home-made. Cooked or slurried together due to lack of time. A mutton curry, the recipe of which was handed down to my mother by her mother, with fluffy white rice. A homemade vanilla cake my colleague baked for Christmas, that we had with coffee. I found myself with some cooked pork sausages yesterday. I threw them in a bowl with a 6-minute egg, day old lettuce that already had a few brown edges, and dollops of mayonnaise. I then called it a sausage salad. That’s my daily level of fancy-ness. It may be comfortable, mediocre or cherished. But it is what it is.

We took a whirlwind tour of Bangkok, Singapore and Bali. I travel to eat — for the most part — and I was not disappointed. Big bowlfuls of kuay chap, rolled noodles with crispy pork, hokkien mee, unctuous plates of Hainanese chicken rice, nasi goreng, barbecued pork ribs, piles of seafood by the beach and cups of robust Luwak coffee with sweet coconut milk. Nothing plated, ready for Instagram. But everything made to fill an insatiable appetite for good food.

We returned to a rain-drenched waterlogged city. And within 24 hours of arrival, I was craving khichdi. A steaming plate of gooey rice and dal, to warm you up in the chill of monsoon. So we had khichdi for lunch. And a quiche for dinner.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, She talks about eating un-fancy and then goes and serves up a quiche! But a quiche is right up there with khichdi, believe you me. It’s pie-crust, egg custard and filling. And there is not much that you can screw up. If making pastry makes you nervous, just get a crust from the shops. The custard is a mixture without all of the fiddly bits that go into making an anglaise. And then you have the filling, either cooked or raw, based on what you choose. A quiche is one of those dishes that you can load and dress up for a party. Or you can choose to have it for dinner at home. A quiet and good meal. After all the bright loveliness of Instagrammed food shots and the silkiness of a quenelled mousse — khichdi, chicken rice, mushroom quiche…is what we eat.

Chicken and Mushroom Quiche

I don’t have a record of producing ground-breaking quiches. But I had once made a chicken and cheese bake in a disposable aluminum tray, that had gotten high praises at an end-of-semester student-professor lunch. So, listen up.

Feel free to get a store-bought savory pie crust. If you’re not quick or confident at making pie-crusts, it makes no sense to labor away and experiment with them for a simple dinner. Let’s be honest here — pastry can smell fear. If you have a good shortcrust pastry recipe use that. If not, I love Rachel Allen’s pie crust recipe.

Note the cheese — choose something you like to eat a lot of. A light cheddar or a matured one, sharp and violently orange. The next time I’m making this, I would definitely want to use something hard, either Pecorino or Parmesan. The recipe also uses cooked chicken. Preferably dark meat. If you have leftovers from a roast, that’s best. Or poach a chicken with salt and black peppercorns, strain off the water and fork the meat of the bones.

Heat oil and butter in a pan. Add the minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds to a minutes, just to remove the pungency. Add the cooked chicken and mushrooms. Cover and cook on medium heat for about 5 minutes, till the mushrooms soften a bit. Add fresh thyme leaves, Worcestershire sauce, salt and freshly ground pepper. Do a taste test. Adjust the salt and pepper, if needed. take the mixture off heat and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine milk, cream, nutmeg and eggs and whisk well till the mixture is smooth.

Tip the chicken-mushroom mixture into the tart shell and spread evenly. Pour the milk mixture carefully over. Sprinkle cheese evenly on top. Season with salt and pepper. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 30 minutes, till the custard is set. It takes a little more (about 40 minutes) in my oven. So check with your oven temperatures. Garnish the quiche with coriander and serve.

I’m coming to you from somewhere high above the Atlantic, as I fly back home. The airplane cabin is dark and quiet. The baby in 24C was crying a while back. He’s fallen asleep. I’ve just a finished a spectacularly bad meal of pack-n-seal biryani. But buckle up, this is going to be a long one.

It would be OK for you to assume that I haven’t been doing much of cooking or baking, and you wouldn’t be wrong. Barring junk-that-will-make-you-slobber-uncontrollably hot dogs and a chicken and mushroom quiche, which I will share with you shortly, I haven’t really spent much time in the kitchen this year. So far.

Remember how we discussed Altertrips over lemon cake? I did promise to share more with you and now is just as good a time as any.

Two summers ago, in 2015, we took an impromptu flight to Berlin. Just because. Fauri, my BFF from Uni (and fellow kebab-lover), was finishing up with her post-grads in Dessau and I was looking for a short break. Germany seemed like an attractive option. Unfazed by the popular consensus about the starkness of bratwurst, my family wanted to come along. And so they did.

I don’t have to tell you how family vacations are completely different from vacations with friends. It’s the priorities that get you. Hostel vs Hotel. Sightseeing vs Eating. Eating Indian vs Eating local. Walking around all day vs Going back to the hotel for an afternoon siesta.

Luckily, my family’s made up of champs and travel-hungry people.

We booked an AirBnB, a charming two-room apartment in Barbarossastraße, with the tiniest of kitchens and a bathroom that was so narrow, you wouldn’t be able to stretch out both your arms sideways at the same time. The apartment was stacked with its neighboring units and overlooked a cozy courtyard. The coziness and the green of the courtyard was welcoming. However, it meant that neighbors could easily hear you talking if you raised your voice a couple of notches. Toddlers looked up from their playtime and quietly watched us drag our luggage to the first floor.

Wolfsburg was not on the list in the first place. But considering the kind of car fanatics my brother and my Dad are, a visit to Autostadt was not to be missed.

By the virtue of not being a car enthusiast, I was sure I’d be bored and kept imagining going back to the flat and dry-roasting a couple of schnitzels we’d bought the day before, or digging through leftover curry wurst from Curry 36 (also acquired the day before). But I have to say the tour was pretty awesome. The Porsche Pavilion, and most of the campus structures, were architectural delights and there is that goosebumpy rush of power when you sit at the driver’s seat of an Audi R8 and pretend you’re a billionaire!

The campus is littered with interactive water fountains, landscaped pavilions, play areas that can be used by children or for picnics, interactive learning centers, gift shops, cafes and a challenging mock drive-track for enthusiasts. You could easily spend an entire day and still not run out of things to do.

Entrance to Autostadt. And it’ll be on your left when you step out of the railway station.

The Porsche Pavilion. My personal favorite.Autostadt has a way of making the most hurly-burly adult men look like 10-year old boys.

As much as we like behaving like locals wherever we go, including an entire afternoon when we sat and guzzled beer after beer at a local bar’s outdoor area, watching people walk by, we were not going to give up on seeing The Wall or pay our respects at the Holocaust Memorial.

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner!’

— John F. Kennedy

The city is a clear and strong example of how a Government can take responsibility, turn around and change for the better. It’s professional, hard-working, trendy and casual, all at the same time, which is always a difficult thing to pull off seamlessly. I have not found even the likes of New York or London to be able to pull off something similar. Berlin sits steeped in history, horror, turmoil, technological perfection, hip-quotient and social secularism , very comfortably. And it’s most significant proof is the Berlin Wall.

Climb to the top of the TV Tower and you won’t be disappointed with the views.I mean….seriously…

An entire day was spent admiring the views from the Furnsehturm and a visit to the Bradenburg Gate. If you’re going to Berlin, it is essential that you visit the Holocaust Memorial and Museum. Monolithic cubes in uneven heights is a grave reminder of what history ha put the world through. The unease, the grey concrete blocks stare silently back at you rendering you speechless.

You might just break down at the Museum. My mum almost did. The displays of everyday objects owned by the victims of the Holocaust, letters written to mothers and fathers and sons and daughters, items held close to the heart, precious, trivial or necessary, items held on to while trundling towards a concentration camp. A visit to the Holocaust Museum is not something you might want to do. It is something you need to do whether you want to or not.

Before we left for Germany, we didn’t really take care of much apart from the air tickets and the accommodation. But I did spend some time going through what Viator, at the time, was popular for — the tours and activities industry. We wanted a local guide, or maybe a German college student to show us around the hot spots and take us on a beer tour of the city. Something hyper-local and unique, something typical to Berlin. Something I just couldn’t find no matter how hard I tried.

It took me days and weeks of planning and online research to map out itineraries for each day, that’d be both interesting an comfortable for a couple of almost-sixty-year-olds. Optimum amount of walking that would cover the best spots, pubs and eateries locals rave about, places local families hang out at, and so on. I remembered facing a similar grind for all my previous vacations.

And while a travel-addict like me actually enjoys the intricacies of planning a holiday, I knew there was a gap. Over a month of planning and reading travel blogs and I knew this was a problem.

Tour agents and guides, by then, were only concentrating on finding tourists on social media, their own websites or by partnering with bigger travel agents — a system that was clunky, covered in layers of commission and surrounded by a horde of middle-men. And even though a couple of companies like Viator and GetYourGuide, had managed to group together the most fragmented, and yet congested, part of the travel industry, there was a lot lacking. Especially in continents like Asia, Africa and South America.

I came back with a small thought flickering somewhere at the back of my mind — small enough to not act upon but big enough to be annoyingly aware of it. A whole of two months passed after our holiday, before I actually wrapped my head around the concept of designing tours and vacations for tourists, offering activities and excursions that shifted away from mainstream and focused on the more hyper-local.

After a Saturday night visit to Roxy, Priya and I swayed back home and I spoke to her about the idea. Priya, being an enthusiastic traveler herself, nodded and nodded, silently and fervently, for hours before we fell sleep. The next morning she agreed to be my partner.

It has actually taken us a whole year to focus on what we wanted to do. The gap exists, but whether it needs to be filled has always been the question we’ve asked ourselves. We spent the better part of an entire year talking to guides, hosts, travelers, bloggers, travel agents, while our web developers worked on building a tech-first marketplace web app.

In the process we’ve learnt, re-learnt, walked and stumbled, fell face first and survived and built something that we hope will not only help travelers around the world, but help build jobs for people. Something that will encourage people to travel and discover what a destination and culture is really about. We’ve built the website, broken it, re-built it again and again. We’ve left out features we had thought were important, added features we hadn’t thought were essential. And all tuned to what people have told us would be of help. All to build a company that would not only do all the above, but also be free from discrimination and free from all that is going wrong around the world right now.

I might be getting sentimental. Bear with me.

It’s a journey. I’m in the danger of sounding cliched, I’m aware. But it is what it is. It has been a difficult drag through the mud and we’re sure Altertrips will be a bumpy ride.

And we’d love for you to join us!

]]>https://thesubjectivist.net/2017/06/20/radio-silence-berlin-and-the-problem-that-sparked-the-idea/feed/21_smallAmrita11855738_10153578025649066_7368016023295214465_nBERLIN1.jpgIMG_20150816_095835_ed.jpgIMG_20150816_100236_edIMG_20150816_135052_ed.jpgIMG_20150816_153113_edIMG_20150816_104700_edDSC_0206_edIMG_20150817_133619_edDSC_0327_ed.jpgDSC_0299_edDSC_0284_ed11898682_10153588057219066_3745249991348408619_n8502_edscreenshotUseful pasta for benevolent purposeshttps://thesubjectivist.net/2017/01/16/useful-pasta-for-benevolent-purposes/
https://thesubjectivist.net/2017/01/16/useful-pasta-for-benevolent-purposes/#commentsMon, 16 Jan 2017 11:40:02 +0000http://thesubjectivist.net/?p=5508]]>There are times I wish I had grown up by the knees of an Italian nonna, learning how roll out homemade fettuccine. We’d be at it all morning, me watching and sticking my hands into the mounds of flour, she’d be scolding me between large swigs of limoncello. By a twist of fate, however, I was born to a Bengali grandmother who taught me how to balance complicated chemical equations, smelled of lavender and handed down a mutton curry recipe. It was a good deal, if you ask me.

That does mean I buy dry pasta from the supermarket and that owning a pasta maker is on the list. On the list, I said.

For a long time, pasta was my quintessential go-to meal. Those days, I’d wake up late in the afternoon and walk an often sleet-covered pavement, down to the nearest Sainsbury’s. I would then spend a whole hour eyeing the salmon fillets and logs of blood pudding, stocking up on dried pasta, chili flakes and bags of salt-n-vinegar crisps. I’d then spend another hours picking chocolate bars from new and un-heard of brands that seem to pop up every other day in England.

After trundling home with bright green bags of food, heat up a pan with oil and a pot with salted water. In the pan would go cubed salmon, garlic and chili flakes. I’d then proceed to tumble in the cooked pasta and finish off with a handful of grated parmesan. Sometimes bits of blood pudding would also end up in the pan with the salmon. But blood pudding is not something to be used regularly in pasta, let alone with something as delicate as salmon. Blood pudding is something you should stow away, to eat sauteed — with bread and lettuce when you’re alone, or scallops and mushy peas when there’s company.

I thought I had a picture somewhere, and I did!

The problem was, not once could I ever finish an entire portion alone. The smell of salmon and cheese had the incredible power to bring my housemates out of their afternoon hibernation. University students around food is like leaving a split-skinned banana out in the backyard. With the banana, you’ll find it half-eaten by ants and bugs. With the students, you’ll find empty plates licked clean.

Food is a calling. Invisible, and severely strong waves spread from plates of food, till they reach all students in the vicinity. Who then walk towards it like zombies hungry for blood. The food calls to them. Guides them to wherever it is. And that was always the case with pasta, or any food actually, in my house. I always liked to think I was performing an act of benevolence for the hungry masses.

I inevitably turn to Nigella Lawson, when it comes to pasta. I mean look at this. And this.

How could you not have something called Slut Spaghetti in your repertoire?

But this dish is much less than that. A quick mix of minced chicken with garlic, chilies, tomatoes and dried oregano over al dente spaghetti.

Sometimes it feels like I’m 22, bent over on rolls of tracing paper at my college drafting board, wondering when I’ll hear the roar of motorcycle engines outside, signalling the possibility of a midnight mini road-trip.

Sometimes it feels like I’m 42, bent out of shape, exhausted and wondering when they’re going to invent a bed that will be able to swallow me whole.

But I turned 32, almost a fortnight ago now.

I feel like I have to whisper it, lest it sets off people into asking me if I’m married or if I have children.

I’m not. And I don’t.

Does it feel weird?

Yes and no.

Yes, because when I was younger, much younger, I had imagined – not in too many details – my life to be somewhat different. Maybe a little more accomplished, a little thinner. With a toddler by my knees and a one-off house in Devonshire.

No, because it has been a roller-coaster ride so far and I’ve enjoyed every bit of it. Accomplishments have come, gone and come again. I could be much thinner. There are no toddlers around, but there’s calm and stillness, a complete command over my own life. I don’t wake up to wet nappies, I wake up to chocolate cupcakes.

There are family members who have been my biggest supporters. And I am grateful for that. There are friends who have blindly followed me into the unknown. And I’m grateful for their trust. There’s work, old and new, that makes me jump out of bed every morning. I’m in the danger of sounding like an Academy Award Winner, but I couldn’t ask for more.

To be honest, I shamefully ask for more everyday, on account of being a greedy human being. But I’m content now. And I know there aren’t many people in this world who can declare that easily.

Somewhere in the last two weeks, I’ve heard blatant praise about me and my work.

Sometime they whispered it to each other and other times they said it to my face. Behind a gracious smile, I’ve only wished that I have the strength and motivation to keep all of it up for the next year. At least.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Salted Butterscotch Glaze

I’m a big fan of anything chocolate with anything salted caramel. This is a deviation from the regular cocoa brownies that always seem to push their way into existence on every birthday of mine. But this recipe is more about the glaze than the cupcake. The glaze is your typical caramel made creamier with the addition of butter. A smattering of salt and you have a sharp hit of salt against the bittersweet of caramel and chocolate.

Put flour, cocoa, baking powder, coffee and salt in a medium-bowl and mix well with a fork.

In a large bowl, mix eggs, oil, yogurt and sugar and whip till the sugar has dissolved.

Pour dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and stir till just combined. Don’t over-mix the batter.

Spoon into cupcake molds/tins and bake for 20-25 minutes till a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Make about 12 regular cupcakes.

How-to make the glaze

In a metal pan with a flat base (avoid using non-stick pans with caramel. Always use either stainless steel, aluminum or copper-bottomed pans), spread the sugar evenly and drop the butter cubes in a random scatter.

Put the pan on high heat and keep a careful watch. Do not stir after the pan has been put on heat. Once the sugar starts to turns to sweat or turns amber in color, gently swirl the pan to redistribute the caramel. Do not stir.

When all of the sugar is a deep golden or caramel color, pour in the cream and stand back! The cream will bubble and sputter violently and it might seem like everything is curdling. It’s not.

Once the bubbling gentles down, take the pan off heat, stir with a metal spoon and ensure there are no lumps.

Let cool completely before sprinkling sea salt in it. Mix well.

Spoon over cooled cupcakes and garnish with grated chocolate or sea salt. Best to refrigerate the glazed cupcakes at least an hour before serving.

And some news. But I will totally understand if you skip the news and scroll right down to the cake recipe.

The travel startup I started with Priya, a while back is in its final stages of conception. We’ve named it Altertrips.

You know, after the words “alternate” and “trips”. Get it?! Ha ha, LOL.

After 12 years of being an aspiring nomad, of changing jobs and countries and continents and holidays, certain acute aspects of the travel industry has started to bother me. And we’re looking to address that problem.

As we’re inching towards the launch – December, yikes – my palms are getting sweatier, my fingertips are bloody with all the nail biting, I’m hoarse after continuously yelling at my co-founder and my tech guys (I’m quite sure they’re ready to strangle me by now, but that will be a battle for another day).

I will talk to you about it soon, in another blog post.

Let’s just say for now, that it has been lesson after lesson, on life and on overcoming obstacles. We’ve been deeply humbled, overwhelmed, excited, triumphant, confused and angry at times. Sometimes all of that at the same time. And the intensity strengthens as we near, what we will call from now on, LAUNCH DATE.

But until then, we have lemon cake to comfort us.

I’ve had a fancy French lime and yogurt cake on the blog before. It had a super slick chocolate ganache glaze on top, that made it even more special. This time however, the chocolate is off, the cake is simpler, more every day. And the icing is suryp-y, lemony that adds a much-needed twang.

Lemon and Yogurt Cake

Ingredients:

1 and a half cups of all-purpose flour

1 tsp of baking powder

1 tsp of baking soda

A pinch of salt

Zest of two whole lemons (or 4 limes)

3 large eggs

1 tsp of vanilla extract

1/2 cup of cooking oil (anything odorless and flavorless, like sunflower or canola)

1/4 cup of yogurt (homemade is best)

1/4 cup + 2 tbsps of lemon juice (lime juice will work just fine. In fact, the glaze will be perfectly tart)

2/3 cup + 1/2 cup of white granulated sugar

Whipped cream, for garnish (optional)

How-To:

Pre-heat the oven to 170 deg C. Prep a rectangular cake tin.

In a small bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In a larger bowl, mix together the lemon zest, eggs, vanilla extract, cooking oil, yogurt, 1/4 cup of lemon juice and 2/3 cup of sugar. Whisk together till the sugar has dissolved.

Pour in the dry mixture from the the small bowl into the wet ingredients, and mix well till just combined. Don’t overwork the batter.

Pour into the cake tin and bake at 175 deg C for 35-45 minutes till a skewer inserted in the middle comes out just dry. Poke holes into the cake with the skewer, while it’s still warm.

Mix together 2 tbsps of lemon juice and 1/2 cup of sugar, till a white, opaque syrup forms. Drizzle over the cake and onto the small holes. Let cool completely before serving. Serve thick slices with softly whipped cream.

Her mouth was full of badly made chicken patty and her legs were propped up on the center table, on which lay few more chicken patties, more horrible than the other. The 6-month-old puppy that hardly looks like a puppy anymore, sniffed around for scraps.

We’d tried to get as much work done on the Help Center article for our travel website, as possible. Curiously, it has given us a lot of clarity. Priya, someone I haven’t introduced to you, is a childhood friend. We met when we were both in the sixth grade, at a dinner party her family threw. She talked my ears off and I just sat there wearing a kimono.

Nineteen years later and we’re partners in a travel start-up, yearning for a nomad life and 26-inch waists. I mean what is the point of running a travel website, if you can’t travel and look fucking fantastic while doing it, right?

On Sunday, we were watching Dipa Karmakar on the vaults during dinner, when the topic of fish came up. In all honesty, we’re Bengalis — we’re always talking about fish. We could be sitting in our grandfather’s armchair complaining about the heat or traipsing the Salt Flats of Utah solo, but we would always talk about (or even better, eat) fish. It can’t be helped, you know. Throughout our school days, we woke up early to our fathers returning from the markets — sweaty, annoyed with the monsoon and complaining about inflation. The green and grey striped synthetic shopping bags would be heaving under fish, mutton and veggies with their leafy tops poking out through the handles.

Most of the time we wind up eating fish, if lucky, everyday, in curries. Curries with mustard, curries plain with onions and turmeric and sometimes with nigella seeds or soppy with coconut milk. But we also love fish batter-fried, wrapped and steamed in coconut leaves, mashed up in shallow-fried cakes, stuffed into hollowed-out vegetables or even just plain and crispy and salty.

“I like seafood-ish stuff more than fish actually,” Priya continued. “Prawns and squid and stuff.”

A freshwater wonder that belongs to the herring family, apparently. A word to the wise, if you haven’t grown up around seafood, I wouldn’t advise you to have hilsa on your own. The fish is bony enough to give the sunfish a run for its money. Even seasoned Bengalis or South Indians who’ve grown up near the coast, keep their eyes peeled and tongues trained while savoring the fish. This could easily discourage you from trying the ilish (another name for it). But the lure of the hilsa is real.

It is more of a meaty fish than a fishy fish, if that makes any sense. You can douse it in an oily slurry of mustard and onions or in a crude coconut sauce, it’ll come out fragrant and unctuous and utterly irresistible. So much so, that I, once as a 5-year-old, downed five humongous pieces of hilsa at my grandfather’s wake. I even braved my way through all the bones without any adult supervision, such was my vehemence for the fish.

But it doesn’t end there. Hilsa is one of those species which produce roe that can easily melt in your mouth like herbed butter can. If you ever find yourself in a Bengali fish market, make sure it’s raining. Stand in front of the best fishmonger with his hilsa spread on display and ask for a fish with roe.

One of the easiest and no doubt, delicious things that you can do to a hilsa fish that’s fat with roe, is slather it with turmeric powder and salt and shallow fry it in mustard oil. The fish turns dark while the skin turns crispy and golden against the umami of the crunchy-outside-squishy-inside roe. And that is exactly what we did the next morning.

We worked till lunch and I brought out my new Fujifilm Instax 300 Wide. I’m still getting the hang of experimenting with the instant camera, so the photos may not the be best you’ve seen. The morning was cloudy and fraught with UI/UX exercises. But it had hilsa, golden-skinned and nestled between sheets of kitchen paper.

Sprinkle and coat the pieces of fish with turmeric and salt. Leave for 20-30 minutes in the refrigerator.

Heat the oil in a wok till the top starts to smoke. Reduce the heat and fan away the smoke with your hand (be careful!). Pop the fish into the hot oil in batches of 2 or 3. Raise the heat to medium-high. Depending on the size of your wok don’t put in more than 3 or 4. Keep the batches small.

Cover and fry the fish till the pieces starts to darken and the skin goes crispy. Flip the fish after 1 minute and fry for 2 more minutes. Total frying time should not go more than 4 minutes.

Pick the pieces out of oil and leave them on paper towels that’ll soak up the excess oil.

Serve with steamed white rice, dal and big fat wedges of lime.

]]>https://thesubjectivist.net/2016/08/16/my-answer-will-and-always-be-hilsa/feed/2ilishAmritadoggreenilishilish2In two inches of oilhttps://thesubjectivist.net/2016/08/10/in-two-inches-of-oil/
https://thesubjectivist.net/2016/08/10/in-two-inches-of-oil/#respondWed, 10 Aug 2016 10:36:19 +0000http://thesubjectivist.net/?p=5244]]>I’m writing to you from the mundane blue and white of my office, where I have taken a break from Excel worksheets to think about food.

This may be the coffee talking, but is there nothing you can’t do with chicken?

The photo above makes me want to plunge my face into the wok. I don’t want to think about what the hot oil might do to my face. The truth is that I’ve been trying to lose weight. Considering the fact that I’m the last person on earth to conform to a routine life of carefully selected food and regular sessions of well-rounded exercising, this might be the toughest mission I have ever embarked upon.

I will let you know how it all goes, as soon as I stop eating this fried chicken.

Only on rare occasions do I pull out my wok and semi-deep fry something. I’ve always been a shallow-fryer, a rooter for optimal use of oil. I would cringe five times before agreeing to confit anything. I don’t actually know where or when I’d acquired this peculiar turn-my-nose-up-at-oil characteristic. But I do think, it has something do with consuming soggy, oily food at ungodly hours and ending up sick as a result – something I did on a regular basis when in Uni.

This chicken is more than just simple. It’s simple AF.

You take pieces of the bird, let them wallow in a laughably easy marinade, coat them in cornflour and fry. In two inches of oil.

Garlic and Pepper Fried Chicken

There’s a curious method my grandmother used to follow when she deep-fried food in a wok, where she would let the oil smoke for a few seconds and then turn the heat off. Once she’d fan away the smoke from the surface of the hot, hot oil, she’d turn the heat up again and start frying, which resulted in crunchy exteriors and soft and perfectly-cooked interiors. I use the same method. Be careful while fanning, though.

Ingredients:

1 kilo of chicken
2 teaspoons of ginger paste
1 tablespoon of garlic paste
Half a cup of plain yogurt
Salt, to taste
Oil, to fry (not olive oil, but sunflower or rapeseed, something colorless and flavourless)
Cornflour, enough to coat the chicken pieces (the quantity varies, I need slightly more than a cup, you may require more)
2 tablespoons of dried garlic powder
1 tablespoon of cracked white pepper
Freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
Wedges of lemons or limes, to garnish

How-To:Make a marinade out of the ginger, garlic, yogurt and salt, in a large bowl. Coat the chicken pieces well in the marinade. Cover the bowl with cling film and leave in the refrigerator for a minimum of two hours. Overnight, would be better.

Mix the cornflour with garlic powder and white pepper and spread out the dry mix on a tray in a think layer.

Pick each piece out of the marinade and lightly shake off the excess liquid. Roll the pieces around in the dry mix till there’s an even coating of cornflour on each of them.

Pour 2-3 inches of oil in a wok or a deep-bottomed pan and heat on high till the top of the oil starts smoking. Turn the heat off completely. Fan away the smoke from the surface of the oil and turn the heat back on. Start frying the chicken immediately, in batched of 3 or 4 pieces. Make sure you don’t crowd the pieces. They’ll start braising if you do.

Depending on the heat, which is best kept at medium-high, your chicken is cooked when the outside is golden-brown and the inside is white. Take the largest piece in the batch and pierce it at its thickest part. It’s cooked if the juices run clear.

Regulate the heat based on how quick it’s frying the chicken or if the pieces start looking a little charry. If you have to fry more than 10-12 pieces of chicken, you might need to strain the oil, get rid of the floating bits of burnt cornflour and replenish it again.

Serve with a smattering of cracked black pepper, a generous squeeze of lime or lemon juice or maybe even a dip of your choice!

]]>https://thesubjectivist.net/2016/08/10/in-two-inches-of-oil/feed/0Amritachicken_garlicchicken_garlic_2Take the mountains’ word for ithttps://thesubjectivist.net/2016/07/22/take-the-mountains-word-for-it/
https://thesubjectivist.net/2016/07/22/take-the-mountains-word-for-it/#commentsFri, 22 Jul 2016 17:20:29 +0000http://thesubjectivist.wordpress.com/?p=3476]]>We took a weekend trip to Darjeeling. A work thing. Mixed with tons of sleep. And food.

Well, I mean, look. Just look.

The last Friday night was spent swaying in a train, as we made our way to Darjeeling. At one point, the time when my folks honeymooned there, Darjeeling was quaint, cold and romantic. It is still cold. It is no more quaint. And the romance is stale and fragrant-less.

Now it smells of horse-shit, from the ponies that carry children around the market square. It also smells of smoke from the roasted peanut stalls that dot the viewing decks. A stroll at 6 a.m. in the morning would give you a good glimpse of Kanchenjunga. This is July, so naturally it’d be shrouded in clouds and fog. But a lucky spot can fix that. Families, locals, school children in maroon frocks and pigtails walk by the tourists, like they have for years.

Photo Courtesy: Tiirthankar

Later in the morning, we had to give sightseeing a miss for work, and a visit to an abandoned hotel (that had burned down in 1978!). The hotel stood in silence, dressed in wet green moss. A history-steeped piece of architecture that the world has forgotten.

After traipsing around an unkempt site – all for the sake of work, I promise – we took lunch at Glenary’s. A fish au gratin, pictured above. Flaked white fish smothered in bechamel and salty, bubbling cheese on top that crusted beautifully at the edges. I could have wrapped the dish back to my hotel room and snuggled with it all night.

Not in a weird way.

Glenary’s, Darjeeling

Au gratin, of any kind, bothers me a bit. Yes, the caramelized cheese and the creamy bechamel makes any au gratin worth the name. I don’t know if it’s just me, but downing more than five large spoons of bechamel sauce becomes a chore fraught with queasiness. Does that happen to you? Does the creaminess get to you too?

We ordered some roast beef and roast pork sauce to offset all the cheese. The roast beef came in irregularly cut minute-steaks swimming in gravy, which I can only assume was some sort of pan juice mixed with brown sauce. The pork was untrimmed and floated in an insane amount of fatty sauce. Don’t get me wrong, the dishes were far from bad. Fork-soft and just the right amount of spice. They were diluted versions of English meat-n-gravy plates that had gotten lost in a cross-culture marketplace – influenced by European classics and overshadowed by Tibetan cuisine.

We also loaded our laptop bags with boxes of tarte au citron, liquor filled chocolates and Paris Brests. If you’re ever in Glenary’s, try their rum-n-raisin chocolates and pork fat buns. You won’t be disappointed. It was a to short a stay. In less than 48 hours, with the rain dripping non-stop, we took the car back to flat-lands. On our way back, we made a stop at the Kurseong Tourist Lodge.

Sitting precariously on a mountain ledge, the cozy lodge is mostly a wooden structure. In a dark kitchen stands a lone chef at the stove, frying plump chicken momos for the diners. We were seated at a table in a wooden room with high ceilings, and windows looking out over the ledge. While the cook prepped steamed momos and coffee for us, we sat looking out at all the…fog.

Yes, fog.

No mountainside, no pretty valleys. Just fog. Out of which stood the silhouettes of dark pine trees. It would have been nice to catch a glimpse of the mountainside. We ended up pretending like actors on the sets of GoT. We’re happy with that.

Kurseong Tourist Lodge (at 3 p.m. in the afternoon!)

Kurseong and Darjeeling are pretty much perfect for a quick break. You might even consider Darjeeling for a writer’s retreat, because it just is that kind of a place. Chilly, foggy, nestled between the mountains. Colourful locals in colorful shawls, breakfasts at the edges of precipices. We will be going back over and over again. Take the mountains’ word for it.

In the spirit of guzzling meat, I picked up a set of lamb neck fillets a day after I got back.

A good sear, some tomatoes and wine and 2 hours in the oven, led to a melt-in-the-mouth stew. Granted, I don’t have a photograph of the final dish. You’re just gonna have to take my word for it.

Lamb Neck Stew

The quantities are for two lamb neck fillets. You can easily halve or double it.

Dry the lamb neck fillets with paper towels to clear of as much surface moisture as possible.

Heat oil in a shallow pan, on high heat, till the oil starts smoking (don’t let it burn!). Reduce the heat to medium-high and sear the fillets for 45 seconds on each side. If your fillets are round-ish in the beginning like mine were, you may need to hold them in place with tongs to get an even sear on all sides.

In a deep-bottom pan or a braising pot, heat oil and butter till the butter melts. Fry the onions in the oil, on medium-high heat, till translucent and glossy and slightly brown at the edges.

Add the bay leaf and garlic and stir for 30 seconds. This takes the pungency off the garlic.

Lower the heat to medium-low. Add the cinnamon and cumin. Stir to coat the onions and let cook for a minute.

Stir in the tomato puree, tomatoes and wine. Remember to swirl the cans with a bit of water. Add the water to the stew as well. Season with salt, pepper and sugar. Put the lid on and cook the stew for 1.5-2 hours at 170 deg C.

Once the stew has cooked, take it out of the oven and do a quick taste check. Adjust salt, pepper and sugar accordingly. Depending on how dry your oven bakes, sometimes the stew can be a bit wet. This works well if you’re planning to eat it with steamed white rice. If you want the sauce to be thicker, heat the pot, without the lid on the stove-top for 15-20 minutes till some of the liquid evaporates.

Serve with rice or roasted potatoes.

]]>https://thesubjectivist.net/2016/07/22/take-the-mountains-word-for-it/feed/1Untitled-1AmritaFish Au Gratin, Glenary's - The SubjectivistKanchenjunga, Darjeeling - The SubjectivistRuins - The SubjectivistIMG-20160720-WA0004IMG_20160722_183727Pork Roast in Sauce - The SubjectivistRoast Beef in Gravy - The SubjectivistTarte Au Citron, Glenary's - The SubjectivistIMG_20160722_171528IMG_20160722_151413LambBiryani and Other Love Storieshttps://thesubjectivist.net/2016/07/16/biryani-and-other-love-stories/
https://thesubjectivist.net/2016/07/16/biryani-and-other-love-stories/#commentsSat, 16 Jul 2016 08:11:27 +0000http://thesubjectivist.net/?p=5006]]>I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them.― Nora EphronLovers on a bench, Dominique Amendola

When you grow up in the sweltering heat of India, sitting in a brick-clad classroom stewing in your own sweat, listening to your professors drone on about Structural Design, there is very little motivation for you to even like summer, let alone love it.

After your nineteenth birthday, you decide that it is time to fall in love. And the right candidate comes along very soon. A senior at the University and although his arms are a little thinner and danglier than you would have liked, he seems perfect. Tall, dark, almost handsome with a carved beard that makes him look like one of the Bee Gees. He also likes to dress in black from head to toe.

But the clincher? He owns a motorcycle — a ratty Yamaha RX-100 that champions at sputtering. That machine splits through the silent night air, every night and wakes up everyone at the girls’ hostel. He has the faultless makings of a “bad boy”.

It starts with phone calls that last through the night while your classmates cram for annuals. It quickly escalates to midnight motorcycle rides to the river bank. You spend almost the entire summer of 2005 riding pillion, trying to catch the wind with your outstretched arms while the RX-100 rattles through the rough-and-tumble roads of rural Gujarat. The jasmine trees do their bit to restore the dawn. During those rides, every few minutes you lean in to smell the back of his brown neck. He smells like sweat, dirt and talcum powder. And petrol.

On weekends you have lunch at a local biryani place. You find it weird that he always craves biryani during the sun-breathing-down-your-back afternoons, given that a biryani is essentially a one-pot dish with layers of fragrant rice, spicy meat and dried-fruits to be eaten steaming hot. Not something you imagine hogging on, while the seat of your pants moisten up in the heat.

You have never been fond of it. Sub-standard Indian eateries tend to be heavy-handed with the saffron and rose-water in their biryani renditions and that always turns you off. But you watch him in wonder every Saturday, when he orders for a full balti of it, upturn the pot over his plate, drizzle a generous amount of raita on the masala mix and tuck in. He gulps down the first bite, scrunches up his eyes and nose and exhales in pleasure while shaking his head.

At that moment he is not a bad boy. He is just a boy. Who might have just been kissed on the nose by his mum. You tuck into your meal too. With caution, at first. With enthusiasm, four weekends later.

Biryani in summer can do things to your heart. The spice has a way to slide down your esophagus leaving a tingling sensation and somehow make you crave for more. The meat succulent, flavorful and hot makes you go in for multiple helpings.

And when you have a gorgeous boy sitting opposite to you with the promise of rose-water flavoured kisses and breezy bike rides, summer somehow replaces spring as the season of love. The heat already makes you burn from the inside and you mistake it for desire. The sun is suddenly aware that you’re making eyes at each other and decides to beam brighter on just the two of you. The beads of sweat that trickle down your escort’s forehead, suddenly makes you blush for no reason at all.

. . .

You spend two full months together. Your fingers now permanently smell of spices and gear oil. Your roommates comment on your ever-growing gut and your saffron-heavy breath. Love, you decide, is not a journey only for you. You drag along everyone and anyone who has made the mistake of commenting on your blurry, focus-less gaze and the yellow stains down the front of your hoodie.

At the end of the two months, you pack a trolley-bag and take a train home for the holidays. You glance at your co-passengers on the journey and wonder if they know how magical biryani can be. You think of the dirty clothes in your trolley-bag — your mother will get them cleaned and pressed. You wonder if, this time that you’re home, you’ll like the local version of biryani your hometown serves up. You think of the boy in black too. Once.

You settle in for a long monsoon break. The raincoats come out and the cook makes your favorite chili chicken.

“Can we get some mutton biryani home-delivered tonight?” You ask your mother. She says yes.

Kolkata Biryani with a smattering of saffron on top

The next four weeks are spent meeting old friends, new friends and traipsing up to every eatery in town that’s known for their biryani. You notice how some are greasier than others. The better ones are fragrant and delicate. The badly made ones assault your senses. You like how, in Kolkata, biryani is more about the rice and aloo (potatoes) than the chunks of meat. You now know all the kinds of biryani there are in India. The Hyderabadi one comes with smaller chunks of meat. The Lucknowi one comes with gorgeously sweet fried onions on top. The Sindhi version has peas in it. The Malabar version has kokam in it.

You think back to the first plate you shared with the love of your life. It was all dry yellow rice, with spicy chicken and a wet-cooked masala paste at the bottom of the haandi. You hadn’t enjoyed that. And yet how you had nodded approvingly when he questioned you after his first bite. You think of how much your taste has changed in a matter of months and throughout the mad food expedition that you have been on. You think of how this is the first time you’re thinking of the boy since you’ve been on holiday.

. . .

When you return to the University at the end of monsoon, you find yourself wanting to run to him and tell him all about the biryanis you’ve stuffed yourself with over the holidays. You change your mind. You tell your friends instead, and they’re just as excited as you’d expected he’d be.

A day later, you hear the RX-100 wailing through the afternoon. You see him. And another girl. Riding pillion. You watch in silence as she raises her arms to catch the wind. You wonder if she has yellow saffron stains down her T-shirt.

You allow yourself to think and cry for a week. Friends offer soothing words and hugs. They bring you assorted chocolates and perspective. In the end, you decide that you’re not in love with him. Maybe it was the motorcycle. Or that heady mix of talcum powder and petrol. Or the jasmine trees. You decide to stop thinking. You haul yourself out of bed and to go find food. It’s going to be a biryani.

The steaming plate is piled high with lamb that threatens to wreck havoc on your taste buds. Your mouth waters and it will not be distracted by your big show of squeezing fresh juice from a lime all over the rice. You dip your fingers and pop a palm-ful of it in your mouth.

“Maybe it was biryani,” you think to yourself.

Your friend spots the expression on your face and says, “Maybe you’re in love with biryani…”

Tall, curly hair that fell onto his Michael Caine-ish glasses and a waddle that could give Donald Duck a run for his money. I’m not even joking.

He was charming, which I found to be a novelty because I haven’t been around too many charming doctors. Unless you count those who come up with uncomfortable puns depending on whatever illness you’ve gone to them with. Maybe learning how to pun is part of the Gross Anatomy syllabus, who knows.

Our first date was in China Town where he watched me gorge on golden fried prawns and siu mai. On our second date he watched me down three gimlets and a plate of tandoori chicken. On our third date he explained an extremely complicated heart procedure — that he was apparently quite good at performing — over cherry ice-cream. By the fourth date he knew my dating history and I knew that his first cousin’s brother-in-law’s best friend had a questionable mole on his right cheek.

On the day he wanted our families to meet, Rana brought his mother, Asha, his brother and grandmother over for tea at my parents’ apartment. My brother, Rio was home from college and he was sent out to get sausage rolls from the neighborhood bakery. We’d serve them with All-Indian chai and Bengali sweets. We stood by the door, smiled wide and said our hellos. I was nauseous for the most part.

I think all parents go to the same school where they are taught techniques on how to narrate embarrassing stories of their children to complete strangers. And my mother is obviously not an exception. She started with the funniest stories in her repertoire. Stories that we have laughed over numerous times at various family gatherings. Stories that we keep close to our hearts, however embarrassing and cringe-worthy they may be, and whip out at the slightest persuasion.

The conversation rose a few notches and I brought out a tray piled with plates of rolls, sweets, and matching cups of Darjeeling’s finest. Asha’s eyes fixed on the rolls. We didn’t know she was on a veggie-based diet that did not allow her to eat meat. For a moment she looked confused when I set the tray of food down in front of her. I announced that it was a spiced lamb sausage roll from a bakery that we love. Then she looked up at me as if I had suggested that I sit on her lap wearing a gold bikini.

I should have taken that moment as a sign of times to come. But at the time, I was in love and I’m sure you know how it is, when you’re flitting between laughing at his chopstick-using skills and wearing his underwear.

Rana looked at me nonchalantly and said, “Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that.” Then he proceeded to suggest that his mother only eat the sweets put in front of her. Classic Indian man who’s never had the privilege of being an awkward host of a tea party in his life. I decided not to hold it against him. I was, after all, accomplished as a dinner party host — enough for the both of us, I reasoned.

“If you’re allowed to eat eggs, I can make you an omelette,” I offered.

“Sure,” It sounded more caustic than she meant it to be, I’m sure.

I rushed to the kitchen hell bent on making the best omelette on the face of this miserable earth.

In a previous life, when I was much much younger, I had daydreamed about working in a professional kitchen just to find out if I had what it takes. Obviously, the head chef would test my omelette making skills. He would look at me doubtfully and with a smirk on his lips. His doubt would turn into wonder as he’d watch me jerk the omelette into 2 folds. And then after tasting the fluffy yellow cloud, he would know that I was going to be his prodigy. He obviously wouldn’t say that out loud. Instead, he would put me through hell, give me doses of tough love and push me to the edge of my mental and physical caliber till I emerge well-seasoned and extensively praised by critics.

I digress.

I rapidly put a pan on high heat, broke 2 eggs in a glass bowl, added a pinch of salt and beat them up, while I waited for the pan to smoke. As soon as the air above the pan started to shimmer, I popped a generous pat of butter in the pan and swirled it a bit. The eggs went in before the butter had completely melted. The edges stiffened and the center bubbled up happily. I reduced the heat a bit and busied myself with chopping green chilies and mint.

Soon enough, I slipped a slightly overcooked, a slightly leathery looking, a slightly burnt at the edges omelette onto a plate and proceeded to crack some white pepper on it. It was slightly more polished than what a bachelor might survive on. I silently cursed myself for not being able to make a fluffy egg cloud that would have announced my culinary greatness.

I carried the plate out to the living room and handed it to her. The conversation continued and everyone sipped their teas, as she lifted the plate and whiffed the air above the omelette. Her face didn’t budge. She started eating.

At this point, everyone had stuffed themselves with meat rolls and sweets. Asha had left everything untouched, even the sweets. I imagine she was hungry because the pace at which she had started to eat quickened after the first bite. Soon the omelette was gone. And in her vinegar voice, she thanked me for a “nice” omelet. She didn’t smile. But she didn’t have to. She didn’t think anyone needed special skills to whip up an omelette. To her, I knew, it was just an omelette.

You don’t need to hear from me, how omelette has donned every role in the culinary world — from a chef’s test to camouflage for a badly made dish. They’ve been stuffed, wrapped around, chopped, sliced, curried and subjected to poetry. And all for good reason.

Omelette is probably the only item in the food world that is never out-of-place no matter where you may place it.

You could be making one at 1 a.m. in the morning on getting home after a trans-Atlantic flight, famished and struggling to keep your eyes open. Or you could be serving one with an extra gooey middle, on top of stir-fried beef and Bulgar wheat. It will just sit there and go with its surroundings.

Lately, after all the caramel-induced revelry, work has kept all of us busy. I’m going to be making a work trip to Darjeeling soon. That doesn’t mean I won’t be eating well (pork momos and handmade liquor-filled chocolates, here I come!). I am also planning a trip to China. Or maybe Malaysia. No China. Weeellll…Malaysia doesn’t actually sound that bad. Oh well, whatever. I’m not committed to that plan too much yet, so I’ll leave it up to you.

But I have been committing to eggs. On Monday, I came back home from work, ignored the roti-sabzi cook had made for me and proceeded to whip a whopping amount of four eggs into submission.

You know how they say “You are what you eat”? Chances are that you are also what you put into your omelette.

In the last few cases however, I haven’t been putting anything in it. Rather on top of it. A hot and herbed tomato sauce that can be made in a flash. It is just as much a part of the omelette as it would have been if I had tumbled the tomatoes into the egg batter. It is both a lifter and a topper.

If you are what you put in (or on top of your omelette), then I only want to herby, slurpy and hot. I want to be a lifter and a topper.

4-egg Omelette with Tomato Sauce

The recipe uses 4 eggs. If you’re brave or hungry enough, you might be able to polish it off on your own in one sitting. I definitely have, multiple times. If not, then share.
There’s hot sauce in their with the tomatoes. I love Tabasco, but Gochujang orSriracha will work well. The amount mentioned is 1 tablespoon, but it’s subjective really. I can take a super-hot sauce (blame it on my Indian origins), so I use more than a tablespoon. You can do the same after throwing some caution to the wind. The heat is balanced out beautifully by the tanginess of the tomatoes and the unctuousness of the eggs.

Reduce the heat to medium-high and pour in the eggs before the butter has fully melted.

Let the egg sizzle for a 10–15 seconds. Lower the heat to medium and cook till the sides start to stiffen and come easily away from the edges of the pan when prodded. Flip the omelette when the center is just set but still gooey (if you have great flipping skills), or just fold it in half (as in the picture above).

Slide it off on a serving plate. Spoon the tomato sauce all over it. Garnish with mint or coriander leaves. Season with freshly cracked white pepper and serve.